DOW JONES--After an unexpectedly significant increase in profit last year, the company is Hochtief significantly increases the dividend and announces another considerable improvement in earnings for 2026.
Shareholders are to receive EUR 6.60 per share for the past year, 26 percent more than in the previous year, as the construction group announced when presenting its balance sheet in Essen. Most of this will go to the Spanish parent company ACS, which controls almost 76 percent of Hochtief shares.
According to the company, 65 percent of the Group's operating profit will be distributed. This also climbed by 26 percent year-on-year to 789.3 million euros in 2025. It was thus above the upper end of the target range, which was raised to between 750 and 780 million euros in November. Hochtief improved its nominal net profit by 16.3 percent to 902.3 million euros.
Turnover climbed by 14.8 percent to 38.24 billion euros.
The market had expected sales of 38.33 billion euros and consolidated operating profit of 759 million euros for 2025.
CEO Juan Santamaria said that Hochtief had become the market leader in fast-growing strategic growth areas such as the AI, digital and tech sectors as well as the energy/nuclear, critical minerals and defense segments. "In these fields, the demand for modern infrastructure is increasing more and more."
Order intake climbed by 25.8 percent to 52.6 billion euros. In total, Hochtief had orders worth 72.5 billion euros on its books at the end of the year - almost 5 billion euros more than in the previous year.
For 2026, Santamaria is targeting a consolidated operating profit after taxes in the range of 950 million to 1.025 billion euros. That would be an increase of at least 20 and a maximum of 30 percent.
Source: www.finanzen.net
